Welcome to the new, and hopefully improved, Spreading Light Ministries website. Aside from a new look and a design that is hopefully easier to maintain on our end, the website is clearly broken up into five distinct sections. In addition to this main section, you’ll also find sections on Bible study, sermons, prophecy, and theology. We have also branched out into an audio format with our own podcast. You can listen to our podcast, Spright, on our website, on youtube, or through iTunes.

This new format is easily searchable – just use the box at the upper left corner. In addition, you can see how articles have been tagged so you can quickly find something that focuses on a particular topic of interest.

This section houses some of our oldest articles regarding issues that the church often debates about but aren’t necessarily thought of as theology. You’ll find them under the category heading “church issues.” You’ll also find answers to some common Bible questions. These were previously on another site and have been moved here. Feel free to ask us any burning Bible questions that you may have by contacting us or by leaving a comment on any page.

One of the great things about this new format is that it provides a place to learn what is going on in Spreading Light Ministries across its network of sites. This is your first stop to find out what’s new. Of course you can really stay on top of things by following our Facebook page. This will have a post anytime there is something new to report.

What’s even better, at least in our opinion, is that this site is now a showcase for what was once a separate site in A Pastor’s Thoughts. Now, right on our homepage, you’ll get updates from Pastor Mike regarding what is going on in his mind and what his take is on things. You’ll get a view from the pulpit, hopefully without feeling like you’re being preached at.

Whatever your reason for stopping by today, we hope that you are blessed and that you come back and visit us again. And if you are blessed, the best way that you can help us, aside from your prayer support, is by telling your friends to check out the site as well. Go ahead and click one of the share buttons below. It’s just like ringing the bell on your way out of the restaurant if you got great service. 🙂

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There are a lot of things that stink about being a pastor. There’s the long hours, the low pay, the unending meetings, emergency phone calls and hospital visits, and sometimes dealing with Christians who act worse than children. Being a pastor is a calling and I truly believe that if you are not called to do it, those things will eat you alive.

To me though, those are all part of the job. They might not be the most enjoyable parts of the job but most pastors have some understanding of those expectations before they get into it. Maybe the number of meetings or the sheer immaturity of Christians comes as a surprise but overall the difficulties are not hidden.

To me the real heartbreak of a pastor comes with the realization that we can’t change hearts. There are numerous reasons why pastors become pastors but probably the biggest reason is that we want to make a difference in people’s lives. This means different things to different pastors and it will be colored by their spiritual giftedness. Counselors will counsel, evangelists will evangelize, preachers will preach; regardless of the emphasis, pastors want to make a difference with their lives.

The problem is that we cannot make people do anything. That’s not to say that we don’t make a difference. What it is saying is that we don’t win every battle that we’re in. The best counselors can’t be assured that someone will take their advice. The best evangelist isn’t going to win every person to Christ. And the best preacher will not touch the heart of every person in the pews.

There are different measures of success and there’s no way to score a pastor’s true reach. The reality is though that we’re not always going to succeed and this hurts the most of all. Certainly there can be some measure of pride that causes hurt anytime we fail to change a heart but there is a real spiritual agony to failure as well. Every marriage that fails, every gospel that is rejected, every sermon ignored hurts on a real and personal level. It’s not because we think we know better, it’s because we know the likely consequences for the people we are trying to reach and that inability to reach them hurts almost as much as if we were going through it personally.

It’s easy to think that the church is full of people who have it all together and who have gathered together with a common purpose of worshipping their Lord and Savior. This is an ideal that probably does not exist in any church. Hopefully the church has some mature Christians who provide responsible leadership. At the same time, there are people who are barely holding their life together and the only thing they really know is that they need Jesus and He is getting them through day by day. And at the other end of the spectrum there is quite possibly someone who has attended the church for decades who clings to church traditions and an heir of self righteousness but doesn’t actually have a personal relationship with God.

The pastor loves these people and wants to save each one of them from whatever circumstance is dragging them down. He wants to cure every drug addict. He wants to resolve every financial hardship. He wishes he could heal every illness. And he absolutely wants every person to have a real relationship with the Lord.

What breaks the pastor’s heart is that he can’t fix everything. Even if he had every answer and the energy to address every situation, not everyone will follow his advice. Not everyone will follow biblical teaching even if they claim to be or really are a Christian. While the pastor can make a great impact in the life of a lot of people, it’s the people that he can’t reach that keeps him up at night. If he has 9 successes out of 10, the tenth one will haunt him.

It might seem overdramatic to obsess over failures that didn’t stand a chance of being successes because a person’s heart was hard to begin with. But the pastor recognizes the stakes that he lives with constantly. If a lawyer fails at his job, the worst thing that happens is that an innocent person goes to jail. If a doctor fails at his job, the worst thing that happens is a person dies. If a pastor fails at his job, lives can be ruined and people go to hell.

No, the pastor is not responsible if he fulfilled his duty and a person did not listen to him. But he will wonder if there wasn’t another way to reach the person. He will ponder if perhaps the outcome would be different if he had prayed more. Maybe he has strong coping skills and can continue on knowing that he won’t win every battle. He might not beat himself up for the losses. But he’s still likely to wonder if something else could have been done.

A pastor defines himself as much by his failures as his successes. The successes get reported – conversions, baptisms, church growth – and hopefully these are celebrated by the church as well as the pastor. But only the pastor knows about the advice not taken, the people who are still hurting within the church, the well intentioned church attendee that just seems unable to get their life on track.

There a lots of joys as a pastor. Leading a group of believers in worship of Almighty God is an experience few will ever have. There are lives that are forever changed for the good. There are wins in ministry that are worth celebrating. But all of this does come with heartbreak as well because we know some will just never get it. They see others live a joyful Christian life but they’ll never humble themselves and submit to it. It hurts the pastor to watch it happen but he will most likely soldier on because there is always another person who needs help.

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Today is Independence Day in the United States and there will be a lot of celebrating along with hemming and hawing about what the Founding Fathers would think of our country today. There has been nearly endless discussion over what flags are appropriate to fly and what our Constitution says about free speech and marriage.

Perhaps though, we take far too much of our identity from the nation and/or state that we were born in. This is not to imply that I would want to live somewhere else. It’s just the fact that we should identify ourselves as Christians first and foremost. If the laws and morals of our land do or don’t match up with our biblically defined values is almost secondary. We must obey God rather than men.

The author of Hebrews shows us where our loyalty should be. Hebrews 11:13-16:

13 All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth. 14 People who say such things show that they are looking for a country of their own. 15 If they had been thinking of the country they had left, they would have had opportunity to return. 16 Instead, they were longing for a better country—a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them.

No matter how much you believe in your country, the fact remains that we are citizens of something greater. We can discuss all we want about how the country was founded on Christian values and it is getting away from them. An earthly kingdom – even one founded on Christian values – still pales in comparison to the heavenly kingdom we await.

Each of us may have a certain responsibility to stand up for our beliefs and hold fast to what God teaches us rather than what man says we should or shouldn’t do. In the end though, we are surrounded by people who are not Christians and they will act as non-Christians act. While there are good Christian men and women in government, there are many non-Christians in government as well and they will pass laws that are not in line with our values.

Our nature is to despair over the laws of our country changing and moving away from how we understand the Bible. And certainly there is some reason to despair and be concerned over the moral decay that we see around us. On the other hand though, we must keep things in perspective. Whatever nation or state we pledge allegiance to is not the one that God intended for us. True Christians long for a better country – a heavenly one.

Whatever you do today, whether it is celebrate the founding of a country or despair over the loss of the values it once had, remember that this home is only temporary. We are strangers and foreigners in this land. Our citizenship lies elsewhere in a place that is perfect. We are awaiting that place. Jesus has gone ahead to prepare that place for us according to John 14:2-3:

2 My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.

While we may disdain over what our earthly nation has become, let us keep in mind that this is not our true home. Our true home is being made ready for us. And with that in mind, the best we can say is “Come quickly Lord Jesus.”

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Another tragedy has rocked our country and has left pundits scrambling to be heard the loudest for their cause in order to take advantage of it. While racism and guns will be blamed – and may be part of the problem – the root of this is sin. Racism does not exist without sin. Gun violence does not exist without sin. If we fix the sin problem we won’t have these tragedies any more.

And that’s the biggest problem. Even if Christianity is wildly successful at taking people who are full of hate and filling them with the love of Jesus, all it takes is one person for such events to happen again. But more to the point, does the church appear to be the least bit successful in reaching our culture and turning people from hate to love? Certainly there are grand stories to be shared but overall it seems as though we are losing the battle. And this is not just an issue in the United States. In many places that were once predominantly Christian, it appears as though the battle has already been lost. Grand cathedrals are no longer places of worship but are tourist attractions and markers of history of a bygone era.

From the perspective of most people, society seems to be getting worse, not better. If that is the case, the broader question is why. Why has the church lost ground in society? Why has sin become so predominant everywhere we look? And more importantly, why wasn’t sin defeated at the cross?

There are no easy answers to these questions and how a person responds to them will vary widely on the theology they’ve been taught to believe. It wasn’t that long ago – a hundred years or so – that the predominant theology said the world would keep improving until the gospel reached everywhere and it would usher in Jesus’ Kingdom.

Now, many people believe just the opposite. The world is getting worse and worse and it will only be fixed when Jesus returns with a sword to strike down His enemies. Regardless of the interpretation or how literally one takes it, the book of Revelation certainly depicts a lot of calamity before peace is achieved.

This still begs the question of why though. Why has the devil not been defeated? It’s certainly a very hard argument to make that he is not present and active in the world today. Where is the victory over sin and death that we were promised? Are all of the promises of the cross only valid at the end of this age?

I don’t have all of the answers but I do have a few thoughts. For starters, Satan has definitely been defeated already. In our limited ability, we often depict a battle between God and Satan; I still use such metaphors myself. That gives far too much credit to Satan and not nearly enough credit to God. This was never a battle because that would imply that Satan ever had a chance at winning. Satan has led a rebellion and that rebellion has been thwarted because it never stood a chance to begin with against an all-powerful God.

What we experience today is the effects of the rebellion. The world is currently Satan’s domain. He is the prince of this world. To depict things in a modern context, Satan is holed up in a little house with the full force of the military outside of his door. He currently has full reign over the things in that house but there is no way that he is getting away. His rule is not absolute nor is it eternal. While he holds sway over humanity now and he holds us hostage, it is only temporary and he has not usurped God’s power.

Satan has been defeated at the cross but we still see the effects of sin and death because we are incapable of viewing time from God’s perspective. Two thousand years and counting since the time of Jesus is a very long time to us but it is the blink of an eye to God. The rebellion has been crushed but Satan is still going to take as many people with him as he can.

We live in “the end of this age.” Ever since Jesus ascended to heaven, every generation has had people who were convinced that He would return in their lifetime. No matter the signs that people see, we don’t know when His return will be. The end of the age can end tomorrow or it can stretch on for another two thousand years. That seems unlikely to us but it certainly seemed unlikely to many in the early church who also expected Jesus’ immediate return.

The victory that we experience now is not the victory that we long for. We long for a time when there will be no more sin or death. We long for a time when all things will be perfect. That is not this time. There will be a day when that is realized however. It has already been accomplished but it has not been put into effect yet.

We do see parts of the victory in the world around us though. Amidst the kind of horror that we can only hope and pray we never experience, we can see Christians who respond with love and forgiveness. This does not mean that there is not also sorrow and anger but I believe that it is only through the power of God that any kind of peace can be given in this kind of situation.

Compare the response of Christians to tragedy to that of non-Christians. While I can’t say that it is universal, in general there is certainly a greater amount of love and forgiveness that surrounds a tragedy. That is the victory of the cross that we experience today. It is the ability to handle the worst of what life has to offer and still awake the next day and say “God is good.” It doesn’t mean that a Christian is happy about the circumstances but they can still have a peace that passes understanding knowing that God still has the victory despite the evidence that sin is alive and well today.

In the end, we still long for the day when all sin is eradicated and Satan has no power over us. While we wait, we will endure the effects of a broken world that is in rebellion against God. But we do so knowing that it is temporary. We will see the full effects of victory and we can experience the partial effects of it now.